Hansel and Gretel - Interactive Story for Kids

Splash Screen
Character Selection Screen
Ogre ending on Show and Spot
Choice Screen on Spot and Echo Show
Choice Screen
Splash Screens on Echo Show and Spot

Inspiration

Our inspiration were Choose Your Own Adventure Books or Pick-a-path series. We love those stories and always wanted to move them into digital world - adding professional voice acting, music and sound effects. When Alexa was introduced in New Zealand we it was the best platform to implement interactive stories using voice commands.

We’ve been blown away by the feedback from children and parents playing our story.

Dr Jannie van Hees from the New Zealand Council for Educational Research calls the Red Riding Hood - Interactive Story “an admirable concept”. “Children love Red Riding Hood because it allows them to create their own versions of the story and bring their favorite characters to life. Twisted Tales teaches children listening skills, as well as risk management and decision-making.

What it does

Twisted Tales combines the best of e-books, audiobooks and video games to create something new and exciting: Interactive Audio Story.

Hansel and Gretel is new take on choose-your-own-adventure stories that uses professional voice actors, sound effects, music and art to reinvent classic fairy tales. The skill provides classical fairy tales with a twist. Readers are able to explore different story lines and endings. What's more, readers are able to experience the story from the perspective of not only Hansel and Gretel, but the Evil Witch as well.

How we built it

We re-wrote the story by adding alternative paths and endings. We also added the story told from the Evil Witch's point of view.

Later we performed voice recordings in a home studio with our friends and their kids.

We also enriched the story with immersive sound effects and music.

Finally we found a talented illustrator to enhance the Alexa skill with unique visuals and images.

Challenges we ran into

We had to record some lines multiple times to get the right effect, some of our voice talents were really tired after whole day in the studio. Learning APL was relatively easy but making all elements fitting together was a challenge - often the view in the simulator was different to real devices.

Finally, being based in New Zealand makes it difficult to test ISP - we had to figure out how to switch Alexa account to US region (ended up changing Kindle Store settings)

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We made it - skill looks sound and looks great (organically tested with parents and their kids).

Kids playing the story: https://youtu.be/5SZzbs_MW9k

What we learned

That Alexa devices are perfect for interactive storytelling - kids love to listen to audio stories.

What's next for Hansel and Gretel - Interactive Story

If you liked Hansel and Gretel we will create an interactive version of The Jungle Book, where you will be able to decide if Mowgli was a boy or a girl (Mowgla), the plot would be different depending on that choice. Also, you would be able to play as Baloo and Bagheera. In each case you would make many decisions and discover multiple alternative paths and endings. Wouldn't that be great?